This webzine is online since August 2010 and is completely dedicated to Electronic Music (EM) identified as the Berlin School style and its derived. You will find interviews but mostly reviews of ambient, sequenced and symphonic EM with a glimpse on other related genres. You have questions or want your music to be reviewed? Please read the 123 FAQ section attentively. Bear in mind the main purpose of this Blog. So welcome in and I hope it will guide you into the wonderful world of EM.

I have adored Ian Boddy & Markus Reuter's last collaboration. Derwish was an audacious album where abstract electronic structures flew on curt rhythms, a little as in the universe of King Crimson. “Colour Division” drinks of the same musical pattern, as for the ambient side as for the rhythmic structures, than Derwish. If the rhythms are less hard-hitting, the ambiences are always so intriguing, even disturbing. Here is a review about a seductive work where the music does more than drawing some harmonies. It cements them skillfully in a sonic world made of abstractions.A synth snores shamelessly. Letting go its snores which swell into long twists with resounding contours, the synth invites the lamentations of Markus Reuter's electric six-strings to weave an ambiospherical opening which flows on a bed of twinkling arpeggios and throws itself into a heavy rhythm, hammered by e-percussions and by their effects of echo. The hymn of heavy rock reminds me of Home by the Sea from Genesis. It's a rhythm which scatters its heaviness among ambient phases, there where sparkle some arpeggios of glass and cry passive guitar solos, to reborn of its incisive strikings and transports "Borderlands" towards a heavy progressive industrial electronic rock which kisses the herculean madnesses of King Crimson. The solos, as much from Ian Boddy and Markus Reuter, decorate a boosted ambience which already places “Colour Division” in a class of his own. After this first heavy track, the title-track plunges us into deep ambiospherical phases. A sonorous black hole where dark mourners lines structure an ambient pattern which supports marvellously the floating, dreamy and sometimes heart-rending solos from Markus Reuter who is as inspiring as inspired. This is a very beautiful track which sets the table to the ambient phase of “Colour Division”. Some dense veils of synth wrap the opening of "Crescent", a bit like a night which covers itself of its blackness. The first two minutes are stunning with their effects of sonic envelop. A delicate line of bass draws a lunar beat that strata coming from a fusion of synth and guitar are caressing of soft lamentations. It's a deep cosmic ambient mood which gradually sinks into a Black Sea where oscillate some waves agitated of contrary spasms.Like carillons swirling in static winds, a small symphony of ringings awakens "Fulcrum". It's the quiet before a sound storm, because "Fulcrum" veils itself of a sonic schizophrenia which unscrews the eardrums. Riffs of guitars roars behind this glass pattern and plunge the track into a rhythmic heaviness where the pulsations shape a slow furtive rhythm. A rhythm which beats hypocritically in a black ambience papered of insistent knocking, felted explosions, furious riffs and lamentations of a corrosive guitar which ululates of a profound sound pain. It's rather intense, just like "Reveal", even if both structures are totally in contrast. It's a superb electronic litany very ambiospherical where we have difficulty in targeting the spectral lamentations of Ian Boddy's Serge Modular from the ghostly tears from Markus Reuter's wandering six-strings. The movement breathes of a ghost rhythm by means of a bass line which pulses such as a beat in agony. Disturbing of magnetism! The main attraction of “Colour Division” is this constant duality between the synths and guitars which muddle up the hearing, so much the tones mix themselves in a perfect symbiosis. Like in "Beacon" where they cry in the fogs of percussions and felted jingles. Percussions which little by little get loose and structure a rhythm which bursts such as a popcorn in a test tube. The line of bass is vicious at will and waves hypocritically on this structure of rhythm so imperceptible than indefinable where cry, where sing this fascinating meshing synth/guitar. "Slowfall" ends this last work of the Boddy/Reuter tandem with a somber ambiospherical structure a bit apocalyptic where floats a smell of disaster splendidly painted by this mesmerizing fusion of eclectic tones.Mixing subtly the heavy rhythms with some superb metaphysical industrial atmospheres, Ian Boddy and Markus Reuter sign a 4th opus which respects the artistic territories rebellious of the duet to the very avant-gardist musical visions. There are smells of Derwish behind “Colour Division” and it is correct like that, so much both works complement each other due to their sound peculiarities. Even if the rhythms are less heavy, less hard-hitting, the atmospheres are blazing. And the chemistry between these rhythms and atmospheres is as much attractive than a water singing on corroded corals. It's a feast for the sense of hearing.

Members of this Blog

Qui suis-je

Bonjour!
My name is Sylvain Lupari from Joliette in Quebec (Canada). I’m known as Phaedream all over the Internet since the beginning of 2000 where I started to write reviews. In 2005, I joined the French Webzine Guts of Darkness and on August 2010 I created a Blog, Synth & Sequences, which has reached the point of 1 000,000 visitors on February 2017 where I also wrote my 1354th review. In French and in English, I wrote more than reviews of EM albums.
This Blog is a huge success and reference about the music which sets my mind free over the years. Too many chronicles, so I have to split this Blog in several sections. Robert Schroeder is the first to welcome my thoughts on Webpress.
So, welcome to this part of my Blog Synth&Sequences which is devoted to the music, the tones and sounds of Aachen’s own Robert Schroeder.
Here you will find informations about his career and discography and latest news as well as deep reviews about his music, his albums.
My only wish is to guide you through his impressive career and may I suggest to visit regularly my Blog Synth & Sequences for more updates on EM.